About This Report
This is the fourth edition of the Production Gap Report, first issued in 2019. The report tracks the misalignment between governments’ planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. The report represents a collaboration of several research and academic institutions, including inputs and reviews from more than 80 experts from 30 countries spanning the Global North and Global South. The report is externally peer-reviewed, with additional guidance and support from the United Nations Environment Programme, and review by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s government focal points.
This year’s report features two major updates to the production gap analysis, drawing on the new mitigation scenarios database compiled for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report and changes in government plans and projections since August 2021. The report also provides individual country profiles for 20 major fossil-fuel-producing countries, evaluating governments’ latest climate ambitions and their plans, policies, and strategies that support fossil fuel production or the transition away from it.
The production gap analysis is based on recent and publicly accessible plans and projections for fossil fuel production published by governments and affiliated institutions. Other information presented throughout the report, such as details on fossil fuel investments and policies is supported by a mix of government, intergovernmental, peer-review, and other research sources listed in the references.
The report may be cited as: SEI, Climate Analytics, E3G, IISD, and UNEP. (2023). The Production Gap: Phasing down or phasing up? Top fossil fuel producers plan even more extraction despite climate promises. Stockholm Environment Institute, Climate Analytics, E3G, International Institute for Sustainable Development and United Nations Environment Programme. https://doi.org/10.51414/sei2023.050
For more details: What are UNEP’s climate-related “Gap” reports and why do they matter?
All photo credits on productiongap.org: Getty Images (unless otherwise stated).
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Forewords
Climate change has battered the world’s most vulnerable for years. Now, wealthier nations and communities find themselves taking hits as heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and storms grow. The whole world is clinging to the handrails on a boat that is lurching through increasingly turbulent seas. Nobody is safe.
The escalating frequency and intensity of these events are a direct result of anthropogenic climate change, which is driven by humanity’s addiction to fossil fuels. By committing to limiting global temperature rise through the Paris Agreement, governments have shown they understand this. They have shown they want to change. Yet, as this report shows, the addiction to fossil fuels still has its claws deep in many nations. Governments are planning to produce, and the world is planning to consume, over double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with the pathway to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C. These plans throw the global energy transition into question. They throw humanity’s future into question. Governments must stop saying one thing and doing another, especially as it relates to the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
Powering economies with clean and efficient energy is the only way to end energy poverty and bring down emissions at the same time. Starting at COP28, nations must unite behind a managed and equitable phase-out of coal, oil and gas — to ease the turbulence ahead and benefit every person on this planet.
Inger Andersen
Executive Director
United Nations Environment Programme
The recent global energy crisis and the worsening climate crisis have a common root: our excessive dependence on fossil fuels. This root must now be severed to achieve real energy security and climate security. From the latest IPCC report to the latest climate disaster headlines, the message is clear: Governments must lead a swift and just transition away from fossil fuels towards clean energy.
And yet as this year’s report shows, the world’s governments still, in aggregate, plan on increasing coal production out to 2030 and increasing oil and gas production out to at least 2050. Most have pledged net-zero emissions by mid-century: a necessary target, but one that can only become a reality if translated into concrete plans and actions to reduce production and use of coal, oil, and gas.
Wealthier countries that are less dependent on fossil fuels for livelihoods and revenues will need to reduce faster. Other countries will require support. And none want to act alone. That’s why all eyes will be on governments as they convene in Dubai this December to tak on the long-overdue work of phasing out fossil fuels fairly and equitably.
Måns Nilsson
Executive Director
Stockholm Environment Institute